by Zamil Akhtar
“Don’t come any closer!” she said.
Something lifted her off the floor; she dangled in the air, strangled from the neck. The blanket slipped off, revealing blood tinted thighs.
Merv released a burst from his blade at the apparition.
Direct hit.
Zauri thumped onto the floor. The outline of the invader became visible. It glowed, radiating the bluest aura over a dark form.
How can he still live? That beam would have killed a whale.
“You cannot annihilate light with light. I am not a being of flesh.” Light shot from its core and overcame Merv’s eyes.
Merv was paralyzed. “What...are you?” He collapsed.
The aura became the shape of a man. A mask adorned its head, on which resided eyeless sockets. This was a Magus.
“Magi — puppets of the devil,” Merv said. “All those recitals...now I get how you turned off the shield. But still, how could you replicate the code exactly?”
“This ship is a lot older than you realize,” it said. “And so is that code. But you should be worried about yourself.”
“I’m not worried. You are enemies of Nur, and as an Elkarian, I will destroy your kind.”
“Oh? How will you do that paralyzed on the floor? And besides, your oath is meaningless.”
“What do you know about my oath?”
The Magus vanished. Darkness filled Merv’s eyes, as if the Magus poured its aura over his body. He could hear its voice like echoes in a chasm. “I know what is in your blood. I’ve read every strand of your being. How wonderfully unique, both you and her. And yet so dangerous. You’re probably wondering if I’m going to kill you. If you wake up after this, you’ll know.”
The path to the graveyard was the same maze Saina knew, winding between bungalows and mud walls and lined by crystal flowers. The grave was just ahead, behind a grove of bleeding green.
Up in the sky, a sunspot blotted the center of the sun. Never stare at the sun, you’ll lose your eyes!
She stared. She couldn’t stop staring. The sunspot grew; it devoured the sun, freezing its fire.
Is this the end of the world?
She found herself on the grave. Crystal flowers nested over her feet. And then, she was inside it. Her family surrounded her. They sang together and laughed. “That girl was never one of us anyway!” The voice of Nizan Uncle.
“She was so funny looking! Why did we adopt her in the first place?” Aliya.
“It’s because of her that my son left. O Zayd, where have you gone?” Grandmother, her voice full of cracks.
Their silhouettes burned against the sky; dirt covered Saina’s face, and she became one with the earth.
Is that what they really thought of me? I knew it, I knew it all along. But now I’m gone, and they’re still breathing. All is well with the world.
No, all is not. That thought wasn’t her own. You’re going to face tremendous pain for being such a burden on others.
Are you...the angel of punishment?
Indeed. Torments await you.
She could feel the frequency of the angel absorb every color and wave, like a black ant crawling on a black rock beneath a total eclipse.
No...you’re not an angel. Your frequency is...the color of despair.
It crushed her bones; it tried to meld with her in the grave. Stop it! It was in her ears, it flowed through her heart.
Let me show you my despair.
The wind blew. She shivered. The earth was gone, and now she was in the air. Another eclipse? Fireflies streamed through, swirling around something black. It reminded her of the day she lost everything.
Oh no — that thing explodes and annihilates everything. My family...
An eye opened in the sky. A red pupil like one of her own eyes. She froze. It came closer, and then another eye opened — this one blue. And then a green eye, and a black eye. The eyes stole form from the sky, tore the blackness out from the walls of heaven. They formed long, slender, slithery bodies. They became a monster — a four-headed snake.
It whispered to her. I am Angra Mainyu.
“No — this can’t be happening.”
It surrounded her with its body. It opened its mouths. It closed in.
“Nur, forgive me! Save me! Don’t let it devour me!”
The red, blue, green, black eyes spoke to her. Nur cannot hear you.
Her bones shook. Tears wet her eyes as her heart bled.
“Dad...help.”
“What’s happening to her? Why is she calling out as if death runs after her?”
“She’s in Almaria — she’s at home.”
“You mean she thinks...”
“When we were passing over Almaria, I mapped the entire country south of the base. I’ve reproduced it before her eyes, but only she has chosen where, and when she wants to go.”
“Reproduced it? You mean to say, she thinks she’s somewhere else?”
“Those wires on her spine and neck are feeding her sensory information, triggering her pain receptors. The steam creates an environment to trigger the nerves on her skin, as does the sand on the floor — which helps make the sensory input more real and less like a dream.”
“The wires you so secretly attached. So right now, she sees something she thinks is going to kill her.”
“In fact, it could kill her if her body thinks certain organs have been damaged and cut off, or at the very least, it will make her very sick.”
“Look, do whatever you want with her, but let me and the boy go. Please.”
“Just a few minutes ago you threatened to pull out my liver. That didn’t work, and neither will politely asking.”
“Why are you so determined on keeping me here?”
“I have no intention of keeping you prisoner forever. But you’ve just got to see what comes next.”
Kav felt so close. Her frequency beat in his heart. He messaged her. Layla, you hear me?
Something played in the distance. A melody. The walls radiated sunlight; Kav felt fresh and ready. The spectrum shifted into blue and showed Layla close, as if she stood beyond the next wall. The room stopped moving. Kav entered a tubular passage. Here, there was no light.
Do-do-do-do-aaaaa.
Da-da-da-da-do-aaaaa.
That melody came from just beyond. The lyrics were unintelligible, but catchy. Layla? Say something!
But no one replied except the Whisperer. She can’t hear you. The Magus has imprisoned her senses. To free her, you must kill him.
What do they want with her?
Light coursed through Kav’s veins. He felt more powerful than ever.
Because she’s so special, they want to use her for their own ends. Don’t let them, Kav. Don’t let that day ever happen again. Get your justice.
The vision of Ouroborus in the sky over Kerb flared through him. His soul felt the heat of the explosion as if that day never ended.
I don’t want justice, I just want her back.
Do-do-do-do-aaaaa.
Do-da-da-da-do-aaaaa.
The tubular passage opened into a room. A forest of wires clustered on the ceiling.
There’s no more time, Kav. He is here. Do what you must to be happy.
“Layla!” He thought of the way the skin on her arms felt when he rubbed her. Now, spectrum showed her right in front of him.
His eyes showed only the Magus — the one known as Dahma. It looked more like a man than a tree. A tin mask over a shadow, a shadow stuffed with dead leaves.
“Where is she!?” Kav said.
Eyes opened behind the mask. Black irises glowed inside the metal.
“Where is who?”
“Layla!”
Do-do-do-do-aaaaa.
Do-da-da-da-do-aaaa.
Just like Vahman, this Magus is absorbed in piloting the ship. He must have taken control, and is now directing the ship somewhere. This is your chance! Kill it, before it regains its form!
The melody increased in tempo. Kav’s skin tingled.
His eyes began to see Dahma as a tree. Bark grew around human limbs, branches protruded out of its back. Dead leaves came to life and swirled in the air. Foliage leaves of red, green, and yellow.
“Where are you hiding her!?”
“I’m not hiding anyone.”
“Liar!”
“You must not do what you’re about to do. The people of Eden will suffer the consequences.”
Kill it!
The Magus opened its tree arms. Wires curled around it like vines. Kav charged Zulfiqar. The Magus stilled. Fire coursed through Kav’s spine.
Then he remembered the newspaper. The hundreds that died because he killed the Magus onboard the 409. Kyars, Tusir.
Saina, Shar.
A leaf fell off the Magus — red. It jetted through the air and hit Kav on the nose.
Sight turned to sound. Sound turned to sight. Do-do-do-aaaaaa became the bricks he stood on. The ship and the Magus became the noise in his head. Kav kneeled in a white world and covered his ears to make it go away.
He felt it would burst him. The blood in his brain would blow. His eyes heard, his ears saw. Too much to hear, too little to see. A leaf crunched. Red paint swarmed the white world. He heard the Magus like a forest fire.
Drops of the ship littered the white and red. Wires, metal floors. Kav heard the hum of conduction. The song played. Do-do-do-do. He sat paralyzed before the Magus Dahma.
A whisper scathed his heart. You must kill him now, or an eternity with her will not be yours.
“Leave here,” Dahma said. “Asha comes. I can hear his conclusions, the swirl of his world and his thoughts about you. He will kill you, Kav. Leave before.”
Zulfiqar lay next to him.
“I won’t leave without Layla.”
“She’s not here. Layla’s soul left this plane long ago. Now get up and go!”
Unleash, unleash.
From his twicrys, from Layla’s bond, a white light burned. Kav grabbed Zulfiqar and aimed it at the Magus. Unleash. A four-point burst burned off his blade and hit each limb of the Magus Dahma.
Two feet and two hands sliced off the bark.
The leaves burned, the branches vanished. The bark became soft — human flesh. A torn brown robe appeared over its body. It collapsed. Blood poured out of four places.
“Ugh,” it said.
The wires disconnected, flung back to the ceiling.
“Where is she!?” Kav grabbed the Magus’s head and banged it onto the floor. Tin clanged. “Tell me!”
The mask of the Magus bled. Blood trickled onto its forehead. The tin mask started to recede...as if it never existed. Bit by bit, skin appeared beneath.
“You can’t bring the dead to li—”
Kav pushed Zulfiqar against the Magus’s neck, cut the surface of its skin. Now, he could see the Magus’s real eyes — darker than a raven.
“Just tell me where she is!”
Dahma’s two hands and two feet rolled around, painting the floor red as the ship tilted.
Kav held down the Magus’s head, felt its hair. Sun-yellow hair, and dark eyes, and smooth skin. The mask receded even more. Its entire face became visible. Small ears, pink lips, supple cheeks. Kav dropped his blade and gaped.
“You’re...a girl?”
“Kav...” Her voice, no longer masked, was feminine and tender.
“What the hell?”
“It’s me...Mirealia.” She smiled. “It’s been a while.”
“Mirealia?” Where have I heard that name before?
“Run...Kav. You may have killed me, but you can’t kill Magus Asha. He is the strongest—” Blood gushed out of her mouth and onto Kav’s shirt. “He’s coming.”
What the hell have I done?
“Do you even remember me?” And then she was still. The music stopped.
Mirealia...wasn’t that the name of Tusir’s fiancé?
“It seems Magus Dahma has passed on.” From behind him, a voice like the cry of demons. “The girl that made him real may live though.”
Where is Layla? Kav checked spectrum. The apparition of Layla, her frequency the color of sky, had withered away on the spectrum — as if she’d just disappeared.
Asha streamed closer. Kav kept his eyes shut.
“Kav — you let the Deceiver trick you again, despite my warning. I gave you a second chance, but now it’s clear you don’t have the strength of will to resist temptation and bring good into the world. You don’t even know what’s real anymore, do you?”
What’s real? “Even if it was all false, even if I am a puppet of the Haemians, that Magus deserved a bitter, writhing death. It’s justice, it’s vengeance. For Kerb. For Elkaria. Now shut up and do what you came to.”
“Then ready yourself.”
Kav closed his eyes. The Magus stood over him, about to end his life. He couldn’t remember Layla’s face. He couldn’t picture her figure. Her voice was gone from his memory. The way her hugs felt, it was as if he had never known that pleas—
Saina braced for her own extinction. The snake slithered through her senses, deadening them one by one. An ovular red eye, with a slit pupil, was all she could experience.
“Dad, don’t let it devour me, don’t let it punish me like this.”
And then it bit her. Her leg became meat pulled from a chicken. She wailed a soundless wail. The monster crushed her between its fangs. She drowned in its abyss. Her flesh tore on its molar. Her soul sizzled on the tongue of the snake.
Let it end...
A light tore through and projected across the abyss. A horizontal slash split the snake in half. And another one, vertical, cut it in four. A diagonal slash rendered it to eighths. Cuts and slashes spilt the guts of the snake into light, and she flowed with it. Someone picked up her soul, held it close. Abba?
“Who is that!? Who has entered my garden without permission!?”
“Does he see us?”
“I can barely see him, only his outline in the fog...”
“He did this to rescue her...it can’t be...”
“He’s cut all the wires that connected her to my garden!”
“Of course he has, he couldn’t stand what you were doing to her.”
“Has he been here the entire time? I’m sure I counted correctly all those who entered my garden.”
“Seems you didn’t. You don’t even know the identity of the girl you tortured.”
“We were just getting to the good part too. Now...where is he taking her?”
“What was the point of torturing her in the first place?”
“Torture? This is my paradise. This is where I am rewarded for all my years of service and sacrifice. Can’t I have fun?”
“You had too much fun.”
“Oh?”
“Don’t you understand, by torturing his daughter, you brought him here!”
“Him?”
“A man who has traveled the path of Iskander, a man who will surely bring this ship down.”
“I see, well, it doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?”
“The ship is pilotless and already on a crash course into the ocean.”
“What happened to the pilot?”
“Probably death. So, what will you do with your last moments?”
“They won’t be my last moments, because I won’t die.”
“I will spend mine here, in my garden, my paradise.”
“It’s a fake garden, all you’ve got here is steam and sand and wires.”
“And that’s all you need...if you can live in a dream, then that’s all you need.”
CHAPTER 10
LEPER
I hate this. That sound, the screaming earth. That’s the last time I let them work me so hard, that’s the last time I let them burn me out.
If there was no one here, it would be warm and peaceful. The lake was like the sky, without blemish in its blue. Waves whispered onto the sand beneath his feet. For a second he forgot who he was, where he was, and why he was.
/> Don’t say that. I need this. I can’t think like that anymore. Just forget it...let the ocean soothe you...
The thoughts stopped. To his right, he could see workers going out in their boats, collecting the twicrys that the drills brought up. Like fireflies, the twicrys twinkled in the darkness of the ocean until their human collectors netted them. The sight of people in this quiet moment disgusted him.
He looked where no man, nor machine stood in his line of sight. The grating of the drills paused, and for a few seconds it seemed uninhabited. There was only the deepest ocean to the horizon and the lightest sky up to where the sun watched the earth.
For those few seconds, it became a pure place, where even he did not exist. With his aperture burnt out, he felt disconnected from all else but the air soothing his nerves.
In these seconds, he felt peace — until he heard that awful man’s call.
“Kahran! KAHRAN!”
“Yes boss?” He spun around to face him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” His boss was ugly as usual. An uneven mustache adorned his lumpy face.
“I was just taking a break.”
“You can’t take a break unless I authorize it!”
“Just give me a minute to recover, my—”
The gnawing of the big drill punctured the air, giving Kahr a few seconds of relief.
“Get back to the drill! Every time you leave, every time we miss a cue, hundreds of emrils are lost. Do you know how much it costs to operate these drills? Do you know how much TEX company has put into this operation? Do you know how much the Continental Empire depends on the steady flow of twicrys? You ignorant fish! “
No — no — no — why am I such an idiot? I can’t lose this job...
Kahr displayed his left wrist. Skin swelled underneath the aperture frame where yellow liquid dripped. “I...I’m burnt out. I’m not the only one, since the cues were doubled—”
“I don’t want to hear it! You aren’t even a good conductor. Just because you’re Keldanese, you think we need you? There are plenty of other Keldanese who will work and work well, not sit on their ass and watch the sky and ocean and think they have any right to it. Your mother and father clearly were the worst of trash, even for the Keldanese. How ungrateful you are to TEX company for giving you this job!”